May 24 2017
Endeavour Mining Corporation is pleased to announce that excellent progress is being made at its Houndé Gold Project in Burkina Faso, having achieved a major milestone with the Sag Mill components, which are the longest lead items, already on site and installation underway.
Construction is progressing on-time with over 85% of the total project complete and on-budget, with the first gold pour expected during the fourth quarter of 2017.
Sébastien de Montessus, President & CEO, stated: "I would like to thank the team for their continued hard work and dedication which is allowing Houndé construction to remain on-budget and on-time for a first gold pour in the fourth quarter. Most importantly, I would like to congratulate them for posting 4 million hours without a lost time injury (LTI) - continuing to build on their track record at Agbaou, which was also built without an LTI incident.
Following a two year period without drilling, we are also excited to have restarted exploration activities to focus on delineating high-grade targets, with results expected to be published in the second half of the year."
Key milestones achieved to date include:
- 4.0 million man-hours have been worked without a lost time injury.
- 100% of the procurement has been complete, reducing cost over-run risk, and less than $120 million out of the forecasted $327 million total project capex remains to be spent (representing less than 35%).
- SAG and ball mill plinths concrete has been completed, components arrived on site and are currently being installed.
- The TSF Cell 1 (shown in the top portion of the below picture) construction is complete, TSF Cell 2 construction has commenced, and ROM pad extension is underway.
- The power station concrete civils is complete and the 90kv overhead power line construction is 90% complete. Power from the national grid is scheduled for end of July 2017.
- Open pit pre-strip mining at the Main Vindaloo open pit commenced in late December 2016. Mining of ore has also commenced with a mine plan to have 600,000 tonnes of stockpiled ore on the ROM pad during plant commissioning.
- Construction of the 300-person permanent accommodation village and resettlement (pictured below) has been completed.
- The construction of the water harvest dam decant tower is complete, with water already being pumped to the water storage dam.
- Over 2,000 personnel including contractors are currently employed on-site, more than 94% of which are Burkinabe.
- Following a two year period without exploration drilling, activities resumed in early 2017 to focus on delineating high-grade targets such as Bouere and Kari Pump, Sia, and Kari Fault, in addition to preforming reconnaissance drilling.
Source: https://www.endeavourmining.com/